I'm an associate editor at Forbes, part of the team responsible for our signature issues: The Forbes 400, Global Billionaires and America's Richest Families. As a writer, I cover these wealthy business builders as well as other entrepreneurs. Before Forbes, I also reported on entrepreneurs for Inc. magazine, and attended Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

How Guns And Violence Cost Every American $564 In 2010

Each injury caused by a firearm sets in motion a prolonged series of events. There’s a car-ride to the emergency room…or the morgue. An officer investigates. A jury perhaps deliberates. A judge presides.

This chain adds up. To the sum of $564 per American. All told, firearm injuries cost the United States more than $174 billion in 2010, according to new data from the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. Most of that expense came from deaths; fatalities accounted for $153.3 billion.

The data is not produced regularly by PIRE, explained Ted Miller, the institute’s primary researcher. Miller was prompted to create it after last months’ massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., and the debate over firearm legislation that has followed. His data took him as far as estimating 2010′s costs, and he’s not sure if the costs have risen or not since: He acknowledges that while mass shootings seem to have increased, it’s unclear if firearm violence overall has risen too.

PIRE created the estimates based on 12 factors, from health care bills to what it would cost an employer to recruit a new employee after losing one to a firearm. Here’s how a fatality breaks down:

You can see that the lion’s share ($3.1 million) is quality-of-life costs. PIRE explains this is estimation of the pain, suffering and diminished livelihood of the injured people and their families. It does not account for anyone who may have merely witnessed the crime.

Now, a look at a fatality’s impact on the U.S. government:

Fatalities are far, far more expensive than an non-lethal injury. A firearm injury that included a trip to the hospital cost about $432,000 total and meant roughly $42,000 in government costs. By contrast, a murder would have racked up $5.1 million total and $582,000 in government expenses.

PIRE includes both homicides and suicides in its fatality estimates, a total of more than 30,000. In 2010, PIRE figures show there were 11,078 deaths caused by guns and 19,382 suicides. Suicides carried greater financial consequences.

America is unquestionably the most heavily armed nation in the world. Some projections show Americans own more than 300 million firearms. PIRE based its 2010 estimates on a slightly more conservative figure: 270 million. That means each gun represented $645 in costs for each American.

PIRE’s numbers are particularly striking when you consider how little is known about the figures behind America’s gun business. All told, it’s certainly a matter of billions of dollars. The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimates it’s a $32 billion industry. Yet, we don’t even know how many guns are sold. Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest seller of munitions—Cabela’s another big retailer, Dick’s Sporting Goods a third. But those companies don’t report how many firearms they sell, and the loopholes in the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check allow that data to serve only as a broad gauge of sentiment. Meanwhile, America’s publicly traded gun companies, Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger,are small fry compared to European firearm manufacturers.

Keep the industry’s opacity in mind when reviewing PIRE’s figures. Still, the numbers are too burdensome on the mind, and on the wallet, to ignore and deserve a place in the on-going debate over what, if any, regulations should come.

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So they can die defending themselves, and perhaps inflicting a good deal of damage, or they can just die without a whimper or a whine – physically or as empty human shells forced into servitude?

The Afghans have held off the major armies of the world for decades – Russia, the U.S. and possibly others. Bombings are quite popular among that crowd and civilians are certainly not safe there. The will to fight and defend yourself, whatever motive drives that response, is very strong and that “will” is what we’re really trying to destroy.

Before the ‘civil war’ occurs there will be many more deaths due to the relaxed gun control. People will keep killing each other. Large urban areas and guns don’t mix. The proof is there for all to see.

Gimme a break! If some Madperson in DC was about GUNS in your hands, it’d be so you’d be fitted into the newest Elite Prison. That aren’t nearly so “elite’ after a few yearly beatings. Trickle DOWN does NOT work, the bucket up there doesn’t ever fill to overflow. And FREE-MARKET is a TOTAL CROCK; every body & their sister wants to buy SAFE products. If it’s a “Natural” thing, good enough…. let it be natural. But I can see the regulations to make sure it does ‘no harm’. Gun Control, is simply a want of knowing WHERE the gun that murdered someone came from? Maybe, helping THAT person decide to keep it in a Gun Safe, rather than in the desk drawer. And maybe, a chance that someone might report there gun stolen IMMEDIATELY, rather than after a crime has been committed. Guns don’t kill people, BULLETS do.

If you take out the 3.1 million which is totally subjective the number drops dramatically. It then pales in comparison to car accidents whose direct costs are estimated at 299 billion. http://www.wtop.com/41/2668312/Study-Traffic-accidents-cost-299B-per-year It’s pretty clear to most people that congestion on the roadways costs everyone in time and money.

But new research indicates crashes are much more expensive.

Crashes involving injuries or fatalities cost Americans more than $299 billion a year, or about $1,500 per person. That’s three times the comparative cost of congestion at $97.7 billion, according to a new survey released by AAA.

The report publicized at a briefing on Capitol Hill Tuesday is part of a AAA campaign to improve highway safety. The organization wants tighter laws on the use of cellphones and seat belts in vehicles, along with stricter drunken driving laws and graduated driver’s licenses.

So there is a $3.1 million “quality of life” cost for dead folks. And there is a $1.6 million price on their “work loss”.

Questions: How did they get such good benefits? Is there a union for dead folks? What IS the hourly wage for your average gang banger? Is there estate tax on this? Does this cost apply if a meteorite kills you or only projectiles from a gun?